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I think the subject worth a thread itself. It's a suspision so far. Yet I don't see dmoz, yahoo nor any major web directory were banned/filter nor PRed zero as my web directory did. I tried to check it in Alexa (powered by google) and I see some results from my site. Appearently, Alexa brings old results from Google but something weird is that Alexa itself has PR0 now. But that's another story!

There were two events that hit directories in July. The first on the 22nd. This was either a rollback or the first attempt at pushing sites with duplicate content down the serps. Was there any conclusion on what happeneded here?

Was it only sites that came out of the sandbox with bourbon that were affected?

You must be either very new to these forums or never read the 1000´s of generous contributions of fellow members sharing and helping each other with a "do good unto others" attitude.

You really owe an apology to those decent gracious generous fellow members.

You know I just don't get it. People poke into a thread just to attack someone else – what does that add?

I can look at both yours and McMohan's join date, post count, and recent posts in your profiles and judge for myself who has offered helpful advice/opinions on matters. Why take a jab at someone that has been nothing but congenial?

Sure, I may have taken a couple jabs at people that were completely misrepresenting themselves, their sites, and the people that read this thread, but I don't poke into threads to simply attack someone and offer nothing else to the topic of the thread… Simply amazes me people get pis#ed off just because someone is being congenial.

There were two events that hit directories in July. The first on the 22nd. This was either a rollback or the first attempt at pushing sites with duplicate content down the serps.

Those that have been hit would have to confirm this.

Was it only sites that came out of the sandbox with bourbon that were affected?

Not in my opinion as the sites I have seen have been around up to several years.

You must be either very new to these forums or never read the 1000´s of generous contributions of fellow members sharing and helping each other with a "do good unto others" attitude.

And now that you decided to enter the debate...

Talking good of a person in a particular context, IMHO, doesn't belittle others contribution. Here was a person having brickbats, where he should be getting bouquets for those valuable suggestions. I said "do good unto others" is a rare attitude in general, not in WebmasterWorld and Contractor is one such. If we can't give out anything valuable, atleast lets not demotivate those who do.

Honestly It was my intention to enter into discussion with you when I posted: msg #:394

The Contractor I really like your detailed well written posts. But with all due respect, most of them smell of Google as* kissing. You talk about AdSense as junk which make any AdSense publisher to feel as people enemy #1.

But then took a look at your reply msg #:398

Honestly.. wouldn´t be a waste of bandwidth to further discuss this matter with you? with all due respect.

I´m gonna move to other more interesting threads away from the Disciples of The Contractor ;-)

reseller, you've got a pretty bizarre idea of how to enter into a discussion with someone, hopefully you were trying to be funny or something, didn't work.

I'm interested in the points contractor is making for a very simple reason: they are coherent. I can see for myself that they appear to fairly accurate, based on sites I'm watching, and the points are definitely well reasoned. Since I'm not in denial about why the sites in question fell out of the serps, it's easy for me to see as well that contractors explanation makes fairly decent sense.

Now let's compare this with 'google a**kissing', hmm, that's a pretty astute point by point counteranalysis I have to admit. And very useful, definitely helps clarify some issues for me.

I would say to anyone looking for re-inclusion to take the time to go through their site directory by directory, with an FTP client like FTP Explorer, which shows the names and types of files in them, _before_ requesting re-inclusion.

I found another 100-odd dross web pages today, from years back, which fit the duplicate-content-pseudo-link-directory type.

Fingers crossed!

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I think it needs to be emphasised that the following is NOT the case:

"Google is banning sites because they include the word directory in the title. Google is banning sites because they use the ODP clone of the "Computers" category. Google is banning sites because they have been hacked. "

(rolling eyes) No need to continue any further, the facts have been taken as facts by those who know better. Let those concerned more with face continue in their self-delusions of grandeur and let's get back to work : )

You should clear all the crap from your site _before_ asking for re-inclusion. That's what I should have done. Otherwise I'd guess you're wasting the engineer's time, and risking being put 'to the back of the queue'. Or ignored. You'd look like you were trying to keep some of the junk in.

Please, don't read anything into my case. I've sent about 6 emails, referencing the case number, over the course of the last week, as I realised the extent of the problem with my sites, and what a spammer I'd become. I wanted them to know what I was doing to fix the problem.

It's mania. Partly the reason I'm in this fix.

My last email to Google mentioned I'd deleted all content on two sites. They were 80% doorways. I wanted to eventually re-use those domain names, so I asked them to unban them in their own good time.

Probably they sent me another reply to get me to stop emailing them. Or they thought I'd gone kamikazi.

If I had put the time and effort into coming up with unique content, instead of those stupid pages, it would have been time more profitably spent. Truly.

Just reading the posts and talking with other webmasters at same situation.

I will let here another data. As I said at previous posts I manage about 175 websites. Probably at 10 or 15 of these websites, can exist technical reasons for get a ban from any search engine at any time. Is a risk that I accept. No one of these "limit" websites are banned.

But site banned has not any reason for be banned except a Patent dispute with Google in US and in Europe, and is a real menace for one of its projects...

All people with a spammy sites banned, just need to adjust some robots.txt files, remove some duplicate content and they will see the website back. They are not the target of this action. These spammy websites are the real basis of Google business, geting visitors for adsense program with any dirty techniques not only at Google SERPS but also at other search engine SERPS. Google ban and unban them when he want using these actions somtimes for keep the image of a "good boy" or just for make smoke for other hidden purposes. Banning competitors at same time that some thousends of spammers, still the idea that "some reason must exist" and also that "nobody is inocent". Is really the way to kill the prestige of serious projects menacing Google's interest.

europeforvisitors said yesterday "If they're banning sites that compete with them for revenue, why do I keep running across Yahoo Travel pages in Google's SERPs?"

I can answer you: because you are completly irrelevant for the real volume. At moment you become relevant, you will be baned. Same happens with my website.

To ban spammy websites has not real sense. Experience shows that any spammer with a website banned will make 10 more spammy websites for replace the one lost. At case that Google want to keep clean the SERPS results (that is not the real case) Google has dozens of methods for ignore the spammy websites not doing a public ban. Be ignored at SERPS, with no ban, will really discourage spammers, and lets no space for any claim. But that is not the target of these public Google's actions. Google business is NOT provide good search results. Google business is Adwords-Adsense program, and this program need to keep just medium/low quality results at SERPS for get more and more clicks on paid advertising. If these low quality search results are populated by a reasonable number of spammers runing also adsense, better that ever...the circle is perfect.

If GoDaddy is your host and you're scratching your head as to where your site has gone! Rumors are circulating that Google has begun dropping GoDaddy website's! I can confirm that I am hosted by GoDaddy and been dropped. My site has been up since 10-2-96! GoDaddy.com, got it's start, with cheap domain registrations, then came hosting. There was a hosting company 9NetAve.com, they became hostile to their customers and began a practice of price gauging, to up the value of their company. Seems, they were selling to another hosting company. Webmasters by the thousands jumped ship and went with GoDaddy.com

jayrrome, your source is outdated and talks about an incident some years ago. It wouldn't surprise me however that the percentage of dropped sites on the hosting company you mentioned is higher than average because cheap hosting attracts those who need room for their throw-away domains for spamming and those who need lots of cheap disk- and database space for their scrapers and ODP clones.

I wouldn't blame the hosting company in the first place, but the type of customer they have.

FYI, I have some sites hosted at this hosting company, and Google ranks and traffic are better than ever.

While my banned directory continues to produce a meagre income via Y and M with many, many pages, I'm thinking of slowly stripping out a few of the best pages, reworking them well and reconstituting them as a new site, a new domain with the old pages redirected there. I'm not trying to hide my identity from Google I'm simply doing a long overdue site revamp and building the better newer site at a new domain because of this ban...

I'm not sure about that. I think that "acceptable serps" is the objective of google, since quality is really subjective anyway. That said, really good and relevant serps would be in direct opposition to the adwords on the side of the serps.

I think that in the future the near majority if not all the links in the search engines will be paying links one way or another anyway.

They would make some secondary search engine for really non commercial and non revenues web sites. But the main google could be adwords only in a couple of years.

Of course I'm juste throwing the idea like that, but it is interesting to see how gogle will handle the competition between good serps and adwords clicking.

As for the topic of this thread, I've been hit fullblown in google since bourbon and I have trouble coming back. The thing is we had an ODP clone in a niche sector. We are completely rewriting the whole site with human content, so we hope to be back in december, for the long run this time...

We are not banned, but pushed very far in the serps. We made 301 redirect and lost the PR for the moment, so meanwhile were just creating a whole new human mande site!

"Are you suggesting that they won't make 10 more spammy Web sites even if the original one isn't banned? :-)"

Of course they will NOT do. Spammers are not hard workers. Basic principle of a spammer is to do the minimum effort. If one spamming structure is working well, probably they have another in reserve, but will not multiply. If one is banned, the one banned will cloned 10 times for guarantee that next time, system will be more difficult to ban.

and

"Without quality serps, there will be no Adwords-Adsense program"

That is absolutely false. If serps are good and relevant, adsense will not work at all. Google has now, because a lot of webmasters, a leader position as SE, an plays with the serps for optimize the Adsense results. SERPS are now so low quality that many users starts to use the search listings just for visit the Adsense ads, and never click on a SERP result. In fact, this tendence makes that to be at 1st pages on MSN and Yahoo, gives more or less same visitors to your website that to be in Google (depends on words) because Google users, are cliking more and more on adwords results. Google uses dirty tricks, as for example the Sand Box effect, that really is just the way to make new webmasters to pay for be listed for a long time. Sand Box moves from SERPS any new relevant website, sometimes for 12 or 18 months (depends on words) and keeps SERPS just with obsolete websites with not updated content. Finally you ad the spammers at SERPS and with all these reasons you find why users ignore the SERPS and click more at Adwords listings. Google has 50 to 60% of SE market, but delivers to websites listed on them more or less same traffic that Yahoo or MSN with only 15 to 20% You think this is not a plan created by Google's nerds?

>> That is absolutely false. If serps are good and relevant, adsense will not work at all

sure, if just one store sold shoes or chairs. That store would always be at #1 so no need for ads. However, if you're one of the 100+ stores, and want a guaranteed #1-5 position, paying $1 a click is a good deal.

Finally you ad the spammers at SERPS and with all these reasons you find why users ignore the SERPS and click more at Adwords listings. Google has 50 to 60% of SE market, but delivers to websites listed on them more or less same traffic that Yahoo or MSN with only 15 to 20% You think this is not a plan created by Google's nerds?

That's not true. Most internet surfers either don't know about other search engines or are to lazy to type the URL of an other search engine in. The top two search engines have nothing, but junk in the search results.

Google uses dirty tricks, as for example the Sand Box effect, that really is just the way to make new webmasters to pay for be listed for a long time.

Can you show any proof that this is true? No, you can't. Because it's not true. Often older web sites offers more then the new web sites coming out. How often do you see new web sites that are great? It's very rare. So, it's no wonder why Google uses it. It's aimed at spammers more then anything.

Sand Box moves from SERPS any new relevant website, sometimes for 12 or 18 months (depends on words) and keeps SERPS just with obsolete websites with not updated content.

Most web sites come out of it within 7 to 9 months from what I have seen. I have never seen any proof that a web site has stayed in the sandbox for 18 months. Can you show proof on that?

You have to keep in mind the size of your KW list. PPC is, as a general rule, the tool used for large KW lists, whereas SEO is great for sharp-shooting high demand terms (with some exceptions which I won't get into).

Some of my (PPC) clients have keyword lists of 5000 +, which is far easier to manage with PPC than SEO.

You have to go into SEO knowing that, regardless of whether you perceive the SERPs as being "quality", they are going to change because you have competition, which is why a hyrbid SEO / PPC strategy is the best way to go.